Tag: Notre Dame

My #NaPoWriMo Poem-A-Day project is Playing With Poetry. I am tagging along with Margaret Simon, Jone MacCulloch, Molly Hogan, and Mary Lee Hahn. We will be playing with Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry (I raided Home Depot). I’m even throwing in nail polish color names as inspiration, just for fun! Play along, if you’d like! We are using the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to see what poetic mischief everyone is getting into.

No need to turn to playful prompts today.

A peek into my poem and process:

The world watched with horror and sadness yesterday as the magnificent and beloved Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris burned for hours on end. I visited there in January 1986 while studying abroad my junior year in college. While that was 33 years ago, and I have not managed to track down my photos as of yet, the memory of that cold winter day, with the wind blowing off the Seine, will linger indelibly in my memory.

I again turned to Word Swag to create my final poetic image. There were many photos of Notre Dame to select from. I opted for a calm, peaceful, and contemplative indoor image rather than an iconic outdoor shot of the now painfully disfigured grand dame.

When rolling the dice to select a text layout, the final selection appeared to show my words drifting upwards to the heavens, sadly reminiscent of the history that drifted upwards with the flames.